house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up; he had
been there all night for two nights together, as he told his story, and the
day watchman had been there one day, and had now come to relieve him; all
this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had been seen;
they called for nothing, sent him no errands, which was the chief business
of the watchman; neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said,
from the Monday afternoon, when he heard great crying and screaming in the
house, which, as he supposed, was occasioned by some of the family dying
just at that time. It seems the night before, the dead-cart, as it was
called, had been stopped there, and a servant-maid had been brought down
to the door dead, and the buriers or bearers, as they were called, put her
into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise
and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one
looked out, and said, with an angry, quick tone, "What do ye want, that ye
make such a knocking?" He answered: "I am the watchman! how do you do?
what is the matter?" The person answered: "What is that to you? Stop the
dead-cart." This, it seems, was about one o'clock; soon after, as the
fellow said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then knocked again, but nobody
answered: he continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times,
"Bring out your dead!" but nobody answered, till the man that drove the
cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away.

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone
till the day watchman came to relieve him, giving him an account of the
particulars. They knocked at the door a great while, but nobody answered;
and they observed that the window or casement at which the person had
looked out continued open, being up two pair of stairs. Upon this the two
men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder, and one of them went